page_title: Benjamin Tillman
section_title: Senate election of 1894
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Tillman / Governor (1890–1894) / Senate election of 1894
caption_attribution_description: Senator Matthew C. Butler
context_page_description: Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign.
  In the 1880s, Tillman, a wealthy landowner, became dissatisfied with the Democratic leadership and led a movement of white farmers calling for reform. He was initially unsuccessful, though he was instrumental in the founding of Clemson University as an agricultural land-grant college. In 1890, Tillman took control of the state Democratic Party, and was elected governor. During his four years in office, 18 black Americans were lynched in South Carolina; in the 1890s the state had its highest number of lynchings of any decade. Tillman tried to prevent lynchings as governor, but also spoke in support of the lynch mobs, alleging his own willingness to lead one.
context_section_description: Tillman had long seen a Senate seat as a logical next step once he concluded his time as governor. Senator Butler, whose term expired in March 1895, had soon after the 1890 election begun to shift his positions towards Tillman's, hoping to retain Conservative backing while appealing to the governor's supporters. The senator signed on to most demands of the Farmers' Alliance, and did not support the forces trying to prevent Tillman's re-nomination in 1892. Butler's seeming apostasy disheartened Conservatives, who did not bother to run candidates for the legislature in many counties in 1894, abandoning the field (and Butler's Senate seat) to the Tillmanites. The governor took nothing for granted, seeing to it that popular candidates, loyal to him, ran for the legislature. In addition to electing Tillman to the Senate, these legislators could help preserve his gubernatorial legacy, including the dispensary.
  Butler was aware of the uphill struggle he faced, and called for a primary for senator, with all Democratic legislators committed to vote to elect the winner. Tillman, who had already finalized his plans to win in the legislature, refused. The series of debates that marked a campaign summer in South Carolina began on June 18, 1894. Butler believed he could still win by appealing to the electorate in the same manner as Tillman; the senator thought he understood the lessons of 1876 as well as anyone. In the debates, Butler and Tillman matched slander for slander, with Butler claiming that at Hamburg, when the shooting started, Tillman was "nowhere to be found". Tillman shot back that when Butler had testified before Congress about Hamburg, he had downplayed his role in the events. According to Kantrowitz, "their struggle over the legacy of 1876 was in part over who could more legitimately claim to have murdered" African Americans. Tillman's partisans shouted down Butler when he tried to speak at some debates. Although this tactic had been used by Butler and other Democrats against the Republicans in 1876, Butler now decried it as "not Christian civilization to howl anyone down".
  Balked again, Butler attempted to turn the campaign personal, calling Tillman a liar and trying to strike him. Tillman warned that Butler's tactics risked sundering white unity, stating to a questioner who asked why he did not meet Butler's insults with violence, "Yes, I tell you, you cowardly hound, why I took them [the insults], and I'll meet you wherever you want to. I took them because I, as governor of the State, could not afford to create a row at a public meeting and have our people murder each other like dogs."
  By early July, Butler had realized the futility of his race, and took to ignoring Tillman in his speeches, which the governor reciprocated, taking much of the drama from the debates. The two men even rode in the same carriage on July 4. Nevertheless, Butler refused to surrender, even after the primary for the legislature was overwhelmingly won by the Tillmanites, threatening action in the courts and an election contest before the Senate. On December 11, 1894, Benjamin Tillman was elected to the Senate by the new legislature with 131 votes. Butler received 21 and three votes were scattered.
caption: Senator Matthew C. Butler
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